| |
| |
|
Customer Service Information |
|
|
|
Restaurant Owners - How Important are People Skills?
You are serving great food. Your establishment is new, spotless and inviting and yet you are not getting the repeat visits that you expect. What's up? What's going wrong? The answer may lie with your people skills? Why do people come to your restaurant?By now you should know why people frequent your restaurant?or at least you should know why they don't. They do not come for cheap food. It's cheaper at home and there is certain to be cheaper restaurants than yours. They certainly come to eat different foods that they cannot make at home but there are plenty of similar restaurants to yours. So you will have worked out your "unique selling benefit" and you will have marketed that. They don't come back and you have to discover what it is that is not providing the benefit that they were expecting. Often the answer is with your people.Customers come for the total experience. It will not matter whether the food is excellent and the coffee outstanding if the waiting staff is unfriendly and distant. Their evening will have been ruined and they will not come back again. When you employ front-of-house employees their technical skills are not as important as their attitude. You can teach a person the technical skills but it is almost impossible to teach them to change their attitudes. If your applicant finds it difficult to smile during her interview then she is certain to be an unsmiling distant waitress. She is not for you. A warm and friendly applicant with little experience is by far the better prospect. What about your own people skills?In our consulting we quite often see managers whose dealing with patrons is excellent but with staff and others atrocious. Never give your staff a 'dressing down' in front of customers. It makes customers uncomfortable at best and downright angry if they have established a rapport with the staff member. Your attitude toward staff should be one that leads them to better service and higher morale. Will they ever need strong criticism? They sure will?but keep it between yourselves. http://ww.profitstrategies4business.com About the Author Kelvyn Peters CPA is one of the longest serving Australian Tax Agents. He registered as tax agent in 1962 and was accepted as a CPA in 1964. He has become much sought after as an educator and speaker on small business. One organisation says that the highlight of the annual meeting is Kelvyn's ability to present the audited statements in a humorous way. Kelvyn is famous for his ability to rescue ailing small businesses. http://profitstrategies4business.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Who Says the Customer is Always Right? We all know the old adage, "The Customer is Always Right." If you are an online business owner or offline for that matter, you are on both sides of the subject almost everyday. How Do You Create Customer Loyalty? Another sad fact of life is that these days, very few customers are loyal. Most of their loyalties lie with their bank accounts, and you can't blame people for watching their shrinking dollars. Caring for Your Customers You probably think I am going to say something like, "The customer is always right." Right?? Wrong. Identify Your Silent Customer Service Message With the growing number of people in every business sector,doing business requires creativity and ingenuity. Theentrepreneur that understands the importance of thinkingdifferently is the entrepreneur that sees their businessesgrowing. Become a Customer Enthusiasm-Guru! One thing all successful small business owners have in common is the knowledge that their business is based on enthusiastic customers. Despite their multi-tasking titles of bookkeeper, service provider and sales-manager, their most important title is Customer-Enthusiasm Guru. Customer Service, Italian Style Nowadays, we complain nearly all of the time about how few businesses remember how to provide quality service to their customers. But a recent trip to Italy not only reminded me that the art of service is not dead, but that providing outstanding service is the key to almost any successful business. Tips for Curing Bad Customer Service Bad customer service is everywhere these days - unmanned front desks, surly servers, clueless staff, employees talking on the phone, and managers who refuse to acknowledge a customer. It's no longer an exception . Whats For Lunch? As an entrepreneur, I'm always intrigued by small businesses, home-based or not, that exceed the expectations of their customers in a big way.Let me tell you about one of them. Customer Satisfaction Is Your Business Regardless of what business you are in - you are really in the business of satisfying customers. The degree of customer satisfaction you deliver determines the level of long-term success you will achieve in business. Everyone talks in code! How often have you left a meeting with a customer or your boss telling yourself he likes my ideas. Only to find later that you didn't get the sale or your boss has told everyone that you are crazy. A White Paper: Profiting with Kindness In 2002, there wasn't much interest for Kindness in business, and some business people would question, "What does kindness have to do with business, anyway?" Is this a for real question or just to prove a point? Or perhaps they couldn't figure out what being kind really had to do with business. Or perhaps the word was a jargon word, an unfamiliar language. Over Deliver - The Key to Customer Satisfaction Client satisfaction starts with meeting or beating the contractual obligations of the relationship. There are also some intangibles that can help you to over deliver to a client. Why Passenger Surveys are a Transport Operators Best Friend Public transport operators who already use passenger surveys may not fully appreciate the multiple benefits that surveys can bring. Not only are surveys an efficient method of market research that will help identify areas of passenger dissatisfaction, they are also perfect for measuring the effects of improvements and can, at the same time, help promote new initiatives to customers using the service. Service Equals Performance Equals Service Service can be described as a "performance" of some kind involving two parties whereby one party is the benefactor and the other party is the performing party receiving some type of monetary payment. The value of the Service depends on the personal experience of the benefactor. We Got It Wrong: Never Under Promise & Over Deliver You know how it is, you believe something for so long, everyone agrees with you, all the books tell you it's true and then suddenly you have a blinding revelation - we've all been duped! You know like my gorilla mates were? (If you're not sure about my gorilla mates then you really need to read the book - we've got a great offer on at the moment!)And you feel such a chump - how did I ever fall for that - the logic just isn't there - I must have been a fool. Let me explain. Aint We Wonderful! It may come as a surprise to you to discover that customers don't buy your products or services because they feel that you have a right to make a profit. In other words, their motive for doing business with you is not to help you buy the latest Jaguar or put your children through college. Be A Resource What is one of the greatest ways to add value to your business? Nope, it's not giving away free merchandise, offering special discounts, or even creating a preferred customer club. One of the most valuable commodities that you can provide your customers is INFORMATION. Responding to Complaints It's possible that in the course of your business dealings, you may (just may) have to deal with a complaint from a customer or client .. Profit from a Customer Service Recovery Program A client recently said to me: "Most days things seem to run smoothly; but whenever we have a customer complaint, we seem to collapse. Where are we going wrong?"How you handle and solve customer concerns and complaints is a measure of your standing in the "excellent", "bad", or "mediocre" category of customer service. Listen to Suggestions If you are up to your ears in a stressful situation, it becomes difficult to think clearly. Sometimes, it is best to walk away from a problem, and think about it, rather than try to solve it with an instant solution.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2007 |
